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Carriers Experience Major Growth In Internetwork Messaging
Short messaging service, once primarily a European phenomenon, finally is gaining respect in the United States. Although the top five U.S. carriers have offered intercarrier messaging only for the past few months, they have experienced a substantial initial boost that some experts say indicates enormous potential.
RBC Capital Markets, for one, says SMS eventually could generate as much as $500 million in revenue for U.S. carriers, especially if they continue to bundle SMS with other services and market it to teens or prepaid users.
Others warn, however, the service still is in its infancy and carriers need to make sure they get SMS-capable phones into the hands of users if they want the service to continue its sharp upward growth. According to Don Longueuil, an analyst with InStat/MDR, a sister company of Wireless Week, there are only about 4.5 million to 5 million SMS users now in the United States, a relatively small percentage of the U.S. wireless subscriber base of 136 million.
In addition, only about one-fifth of U.S. wireless users have the right type of handsets-mobileoriginating-to do true SMS. Mobile-originating handsets allow users to originate and receive messages, while mobile-terminating handsets allow customers...